


“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”

by flailswildly



Category: Captain America (Movies), Once Upon a Time (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Identities, Alternate Universe - In Storybrooke | Cursed, Alternate Universe - Once Upon a Time Fusion, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, F/M, Gen, M/M, Magic, Temporary Amnesia, Will Our Heroes Find True Love?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-02-15 15:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2234259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flailswildly/pseuds/flailswildly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's right, it's a Avengers/Once Upon a Time fusion. Sorry about that, it couldn't be helped. Storybrooke Maine is not a bad place to live, unfortunately everyone there is kind of miserable and they don't know why because that's the sort of thing that happens when evil runs out of ideas and unfathomable magic has access to Netflix. </p><p>aka: The one where everyone is a freaking Disney princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Some of the names in this fic are slightly off of what is considered canon in any verse, some are nicknames, some are former alias, and some are the correct characters names for the MCU. This is all for a reason which I hope will become apparent as the story goes on.

The first thing he noticed as he was dragged unwillingly into consciousness was that the alarm sounded hostile today. Not its usual petulant whine, or the rare cajoling “come on jerk, you’re gonna be late” beeps that always made his lungs tighten up and heart hurt for reasons he never understood. No, today it was a demanding GETUPGETUPGETUP screaming in his ear, his left one of course, so side swiping the damn thing off the bedside table was not an option because like a drunk moron he’d left that arm the living room last night.

“Fuck. My. Life.” The mantra, gritted out from a throat that sounded like he's spent his night gargling rocks, was probably not what his therapist had in mind when he recommended he get one but what Dr. B didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Jim scrubbed his hand across his face, fingers catching on stubble as he chased away the scraps of his dream. Same one he always has when it wasn't a PTSD nightmare, a voice calling him by something he thinks is his name. A smile without a face, his hand on a shoulder that was too slight and too broad at the same time, waking up aching and lost. Jim almost preferred the nightmares, as bad as they were he could always shake them off faster than those damn dreams even if he could never remember them. God dammit. He did not want to get up today, but his sleep fogged mind was kinda hazy on the facts as to whether or not he had to. Screwing his eyes shut against the gentle morning sun peeking through his fucking lace curtains, thank you Natalie, Jim forced his recall back past the six-pack of winter ale, three shots of home brew and the five hours spent binge watching Friends last night and tried to figure out if he had to get outta bed NOW THIS VERY MINUTE in order to make it across town to The Pott for coffee before heading into work or if today was one of those blessed days when he got to sleep in a whole extra hour before starting his day.

Wait. Yesterday was Thursday, which meant today was Friday and he still had one more day to go before he could wallow in misery to his heart’s content. Of course it was, like Jim could ever fucking catch a break in his entire life.

Using his one good arm to throw back the covers Jim took a deep breath to ground himself before throwing himself to the mercy of the day before him and heading to the bathroom to take a shower. If he was fast about getting himself decent he might even be able to work it so he could have an actual breakfast at The Pott before work, instead of his usual coffee to go guzzled down on the short walk from The Pott to his job. It would be nice to actually sit and eat with other people for once, instead only having Netflix and the stack of work he’d brought home for company.

People were social creatures, as Dr. B liked to keep reminding him, constantly hammering at the point until Jim wanted to cry uncle, and Jim’s tendency toward self-imposed solitary confinement was not healthy. PTSD or no PTSD Jim had to get out there and connect with the world around him or he was going to go nuts. Well, Dr. B had not put it quite like that but Jim was a smart guy, he could read between the lines.

Thing was Jim could be social, that was not the problem, never had been. If he wanted to he could charm the pants off of the Mayor and that there? Was saying something. Even after he came back from the war missing an arm and so shut down he might as well have been frozen solid, he still managed to pull his shit together and start a life for himself in small town hell. He got a place and a job and even a few people he would, if pressed, call more than acquaintances; even if they not quite worthy of the label friends. Buddies, that’s what he had and he actually did have more of them than he could on his one hand, if he included Dr. B. So yeah, socializing he could do, easily. The only problem was everything he did felt empty, like there was something missing, something important, and for the life of him he could not figure out what it was. It haunted him, this missing undefined thing and it was that lack, the void created by this missing undefined essential thing, which kept him heading into therapy every week; not the ongoing one armed vet with PTSD drama everyone one assumed it to be.

Maybe it was this place, this ass end of nowhere town so far away from the city that had born and raised him he might as well be in Timbuktu. After he’d gotten discharged the idea of moving home and living with his sister in her cramped fourth floor walk up had filled him with utter panic. Wandering those familiar streets with the huge hole in his life was more than he could bear, so he’d hit up the web and found a job way up north, as far from Coney Island and the streets of his old stomping grounds as he could get without needing a passport. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time but as the years had passed, and things maintained their unchanging grind, Jim had to ask himself why the hell he ever left life in Brooklyn for freaking Storybooke Maine in the first place.

**********

The Pott was busy with the morning rush when Jim got there but he managed to find a booth in back and slide in before anyone else could claim it, missing an arm or not, he was still ex Special Forces and that was a useful skill set to have. He was just detangling himself from his messenger bag because, damn it all, the stupid thing kept getting hooked on his prosthetic, when a menu slapped down on to his table followed by the distinct thunk of porcelain on Formica as white mug baring the stylized teapot the was The Pott's logo joined it.

“So I could totally fix that for you, just saying.” Tony looked up from his order pad and wiggled his eyebrows at Jim while glancing meaningfully at the hunk of metal and medical grade silicone attached to his left side. Jim followed his gazed and let himself be tempted for about three seconds as he freed it from the unwieldy canvas strap.

Stupid piece of shit, he really should go back to the VA and yell until they gave him a new one. Only problem was the closest VA was a good three hour drive away and Jim had neither the time, nor the car, to get there. That said? There was no way in God he was letting Storybrooke’s worst waiter anywhere near it. That Tony had delusions of genius was a well chewed bit of town gossip, he’d apparently been that way since grade school, but after the last time he’d blown up Dar’s car trying to “improve” it everyone had learned to steer well clear of him and his offers to “fix” things.

“Nah, I’m good.” Jim threw as friendly a smile has he had in his arsenal up at the notoriously temperamental man who was about to handle his food to go along with the rejection.

“Whatever you say there tin man, I'm just putting the offer out there. You wanna keep on trucking with that antique? No skin off my nose. So what can I get you?”

“Who’s in the kitchen today?” It paid to ask, if it was Happy than you could be sure that whatever you got was going to not just be edible but that after your last bite there would be a lingering regret that you did not have anymore. If it was Fitz on the other hand….

“Fitz.”

“Ah, crap.” Seriously, it was like the universe was out to get him. He finally gets here in time enjoy an actual breakfast and Lenny “I don’t understand the point of food, we should all live on nutrient paste” Fitz was on the grill. Ah well, it could be worse. Jim had finally learned to ask in advance after he’d choked down one too many meals made up of what was once food before it fell into that guys mitts. He’d have sent back his plate in protest but it’d just have gotten tossed and something about wasting food, even that crap, made a part deep down in Jim squirm in very uncomfortable ways he could never explain.

Tony clucked at him in rebuke even as he winced in sympathy, “He’s not that bad.”

“Yes, he is. Seriously, what he does to eggs is a cry’n shame. How can you ruin eggs?”

The eye roll he got in reply was standard, the one supplied on demand every time Jim dared to voice his complaint because while Tony did not like anyone talking smack about his guys, there was also nothing he could say to defend what Fitz did to food.

“You going to order or not?”

“What are my options that don’t include anything coming outta the food gulag?”

Tony gave him an aggravated look that slid into sympathy when it glanced over his arm. Jim hated that, the way people checked themselves around him whenever they remembered he was a vet. Pity for the poor one armed guy with PTSD made sure that the kid gloves would inevitably come out even when he was being a jerk. Still, if it got him food this morning that would not be considered a war crime…

“Tell you what, we have some pie left over from last night. Happy made it.” Tony injected before Jim even finished opening his mouth to ask. “How about I bring you a couple of slices?”

Jim grinned and flipped the menu shut before handing it back to him. “That sounds perfect pal.”

“Pal?” Tony took back the menu, giving Jim about as fake a look of concern as you could find outside of closing time at the DMV, “Anyone ever tell you your slang is a little on the archaic side there, Pops? What do you have against the 21st century Barnes? Did it bite you as a child?”

“Eh, I am who I am.”

“Whatever, I'll be right back with your coffee. And I know,” The exasperation was so thick you could spread it on toast when you ran outta butter, “black. No cream, no sugar, none of that weird foam crap.” Tony rattled off Jim’s usual instructions, given daily, with the air of some catering to the insane as he walked away, clearly done with Jim and his odd, old timey ways.

The counter that held the seldom used drip machine was across the diner from Jim’s booth, which itself was back corner, facing the door. The machine was old and sad but still worked just fine if you asked Jim, even if it seldom saw much action these days. That would be because it was parked next to an enormous red and gold monstrosity of a espresso machine that so many others in this damn place seemed to think was the way you drank coffee. Ever since The Pott had made the grand reveal and Tony had started working that damn machine like some sort of caffeine dispensing evil magician, everyone seemed to think that orange mocha cappuccinos and latte art were what you drank, all milk and foam and signifying a level of pretension that made Jim’s eye twitch.

The only other person who seemed immune to the church of espresso was the sheriff and she drank her stuff so dark and thick it could be used to repair roofs. Jim was the only other person in town who could actually stand to drink the stuff she kept in the pot at the sheriff station, which was seen by most as so bad it was a crime deterrent. No one wanted to get stuck there over night because they all knew that a Styrofoam cup of black death masquerading as coffee would be waiting for there for them in the morning, served with a stale muffin and something that no one, not even the craziest fool in town, would call a smile. Well, okay, maybe that guy would, but he also had it bad for the sheriff. Which everyone seemed to know, expect maybe the sheriff.

Shaking himself outta thoughts of small town unrequited love, Jim pulled out the newspaper he’d picked up on his way to The Pott and opened it up with a satisfied sigh. No one could tell him that print was dead, not when the sound of the paper rustled in his ears and reminded him of mornings long lost to the past, filled with messy hair and soft skin accompanying a face he could never quite make out, and the smell of the India ink settled him in the here and now the way nothing else seemed to do these days.

“You’re a relic Barnes!” Tony hollered at him from across the diner as he sliced up Jim’s pie.

“Bite me Stark!” Jim yelled back not even looking up as his eyes scanned the headlines, like he did every morning, looking for something that he knows is never there even if he does not know what it is.


	2. Chapter 2

Samuel looked up from where he was reading a stack of battered papers at the so old it was practically antique wooden table that they ate their lunches on and gave Jim a look of deep and profound disappointment.

“You’re late.”

“I brought pie?” Jim offered up the white paper sack that held the remainder of his breakfast as sacrifice to try and melt the currently cold regard of one of the few people in this town he could actually stand.

“Pie?” The glacial look thawed slightly at warm thoughts of baked goods.

“From The Pott.” Jim added, knowing Samuel's fondness for Happy’s way with crusts.

A single dark elegant eyebrow was raised in speculation, “Happy?”

“Yup, last of yesterday’s batch. Cherry.” Jim gave the sack what he hoped was an enticing shake.

There was a brief war as Samuel’s innate disapproval of the lackadaisical way in which Jim lived his life and his need for pie met in a battle that played itself out across his face until finally he grimaced and reached out a demanding hand. “Fine, give it over. But don’t think I have forgotten your transgression Barnes, we had a deal. You get here early enough to go over this pile of…. I don’t even know what to call it,” Samuel glanced down disparagingly at the stack of papers he’d been reading when Jim had walked into the break room, “and I remember to feed your skinny white ass when you forget to bring lunch. Which I might remind you is every day. I mean seriously, I have been to your place, I know you have a kitchen. Do you use for anything other than to store old pizza boxes and booze?”

“I have a box of baking soda in the fridge?” Jim offered along with the bag containing the last of his pie.

“YES. That _I_ Put There.” Samuel snatched the crinkly bag of baked goodness and leveled Jim, standing there with his hand still out stretched, frozen like a deer in headlights, with a weighted look. “Look man, I get it. You are fucked up and probably always will be to some degree or another but man… You gotta start living your life Jim. It’s been five years since you got back and you are still living like a refugee in a college dorm.”

Jim straightened and shrugged before pulling out a chair and plopping down hard, the weight of his resignation more than his legs could keep carrying. “Yeah, I know.” Jim scrubbed a hand across his face hard and over the back of his head before dragging it back to rest in front of his nose, his breath hot on his palm. He knew he had to start living more, interacting with people, breathing in the same room as other living life forms that weren't plants, it was just that every time he tried to, or even thought about it, he was reminded that no matter how hard he tried there was still that missing bit. That thing that if only he could find it and fit it into place he’d be whole again. He knew it was crazy, practically a delusion at this point, but no matter how much therapy he went to, or journaling he did, or that freaking yoga class Dr. B talked him into signing up for that he’d attended once before bailing in the face of all of the that hippy peace and love crap, it still never changed anything. Ever. But Samuel didn't need to know that. Their relationship was based on nagging and bickering, not deep conversations about obsessions with haunting, possibly psychotic, delusions.

Peering through his fingers Jim met Samuel's look of concern and tried to convey the fact that he knew he was spiraling, and that just as soon as he could get his bearings he would do his best to stop. Until then, “You wanna hand me those crimes against humanity and eat your pie or do you wanna continue the Jim you are making bad choices with your life again lecture? Cause I have to say, I prefer the first one.”

Samuel narrowed his eyes at him in consideration before shrugging to convey his agreement and tossing the stack of offending papers to Jim’s side of the table. Social contract completed, Samuel then turned his attention to the two slices of cherry in the bag and Jim turned his to the hot mess of grammar and poorly thought out word choices in front of him. He’d barely made it past the first painful paragraph when a pen rolled its way across the table to him. Jim looked up at Samuel who was leaning back in his chair with a slice of pie in his hand, not even bothering with a fork, and a cup of the generic crap they keep stocking in the cupboards that they insist is coffee but that Jim knows otherwise, in the other. The look Samuel gives him is one that is both knowing and satisfied as he nodded at the red pen now laying in front of Jim. “You’re going to need that.”

**************

“um… Mr. Barnes?” Jim looked up from where his soul was suffering the torments of essay question hell to eyeball the tiny brunette in front of him. He slapped a look of polite interest on his face that he only prayed to God an eleven year old lacked the cynicism to see through and tried to remind himself that this was the career he chose, even if he still never understood the why or how of that particular decision ever got made.

“Yes Katie?” Katie Bishop was one of his more interesting kids, with a quick mind and sharp reflexes.

“May I have a hall pass?” She looked a little dodgy, eyes not making contact with his as she stared down at the contents on top of his desk with rampant fascination.

“You gonna give me a reason there kid or am I just supposed to hand it over no questions asked?” Jim smoothed out his rough edges for his kids as best he could but sometimes it seemed like someone else was in the driver’s seat, someone with far less interest in tenure and shaping young minds and more concerned with the trouble young people with low impulse control and smart mouths could get into without someone to keep an eye on 'um. Katie’s baby blues flashed up at him in surprise, though not alarm. Actually if Jim had to peg her emotions in that moment, he’d say what he saw there was a little bit of guilt on top of a whole lot of _oh crap, I just got caught_.

“Ummm…. Bathroom break?” She offered hopefully.

“Uh-huh. And it can’t wait until class is over?” Jim leaned back in his chair, relishing in the angry creak from the relic of the 1950’s that he could not get replaced without paying for it on his own dime as the school district _did not understand the concept of proper lumbar support_ , and eyeballed the kid in front of him. He waited silently for her next move and if his assessment of her was right it was going to be a good one.

Katie was silent for a moment, three fast blinks the only indication of her current mental gymnastics, before her face settled into the calm look of someone who had the situation locked. Finally looking up at him she made direct eye contact as she leaned across his desk and pitched her answer in a whisper so stage it should have been stomping the boards on Broadway.

“It’s my period.” Her gaze went limpid with faux trust as she laid it on nice and thick for the poor old dumb male teacher with no clue about the mysteries of womanhood. Jim had to admit, it was as good as he thought it’d be. Even if he was ninety percent sure she was playing him there was still that ten percent that couldn't take the risk of her being on the level.

Jim offered her his best flat stare in response, the one that had been known to make even hardened mook’s twitchy and Samuel insisted made him look like a dead eyed assassin, to test waters and her resolve on this play.

Katie just met his gaze with one of her own. She was still staying in character, he had to give her that, but she was unable to completely hide the smug knowledge that she had him. Which she did, dammit. Jim rolled his eyes and opened his drawer to pull out the pad of hall passes and quickly filled it out, marking the reason “Lady Problems” and handing it over.

Right as Katie’s hand was about to grasp her freedom in her violet manicured fingers, Jim pulled it back and leveled a knowing look at her.

“You know I have five sisters right?” He informed her matter-of-factly.

“Ummm…..”

“And we grew up in a tiny apartment, no privacy to be had for anyone.” Holding the slip just out of her grasp Jim made sure he had her undivided attention, raising his brows to emphasize his point. “So I know all about things that someone who did not grow up in close proximity to women might not know and I'm more than willing to talk about those things to both the school nurse as well as a blossoming young woman’s parents about it. Especially if I was concerned it was interfering with her class work or social development.” Katie swallowed abruptly and her eyes widened in panic as she twigged onto his threat.

“I did not know that Mr. Barnes.”

“Well, I am nothing if not willing to go above and beyond for my students... but I don’t think this will be a recurring problem, do you? So no need to bring in anyone else.”

Katie crumpled a little in relief as she realized she was still getting the pass and avoiding the world’s most awkward parent teacher conference. “No Mr. Barnes, I do not see this as being a problem going forward. Today is just special circumstances.”

“Good,” Jim handed over the pass. “Glad to hear that.”

Katie snatched up her ticket to freedom and made her way back to her desk to pick up her backpack before heading to the door. Jim watched her carefully and as she passed Cassie Long she gave her head a brief warning shake that Cassie responded to by staring blindly at her book. No other conspirators seemed to be in the class so after she was gone Jim gave Cassie a long considering look and he could see her practically vibrating under his consideration. Leaning down, Jim pulled out his phone and sent out a quick txt.

 _You at work today or was it another “night out’"?_ He did not have to wait to long for a response.

**i’m here asshole. what do u want?**

_You doing anything right now?_

**was getting ready 2 clean the ducts, it that can wait. what’d you need?**

**& it’d better not b another puker. i do NOT need that shit today. **

Jim grinned down at his phone, if ever he thought he life was at rock bottom it was always reassuring to know that affirmation of the contrary was just one profanity laden txt away.

_Nothing so dramatic, I gotta runner._

**u need me 2 tail um?**

_That was the idea._

**what’s in 4 me?**

_How’s about the satisfaction of doing your damn job buddy?_

**fuck that shit. my jobs cleaning toilets & making sure there r no dead raccoon's in the vents. tailing runners is an off the books op. **

Jim, frowned down at his phone and then up at the clock on the wall. Five more minutes of free reading time and he was going to have to drop this and go back to actually teaching his class, and that was one hell of a head start that Katie Bishop did not need on whatever trouble she was getting into.

_Beer._

**how much beer?**

_Four six packs and you can use me as your next two get outta jail cards._

**make it two six packs and five get outta jail cards.**

Jim groaned at the attempt at negotiation. Seriously why was this guy his first pick? Why didn't he have better backup these days?

“Mr, Barnes are you okay?” Jim looked up at his class startled, wondering if he'd been that loud, before settling his face in what he hoped was a look of bland professional reassurance.

“Yeah, I’m good. How 'bout we add another five to independent reading before we start to take on algebra?” The sea of relived faces was all the answer he needed and at his nod the kids all buried themselves back into their books.

**???????**

Crap, he did not have time for this.

_Fine. Two six packs and **four** get outta jail cards. I am not made outta bail money, you know. _

**done.**

_It’s Katie Bishop, 4’6” black hair, blue eyes. Left here about five minutes ago._

**purple back pack right? already on her, i’ll let you know where she goes 2night when i stop by 2 get my beer.**

_Fine. No wait, it’s almost lunch, come tell me after class lets out._

**whatever. i’m still getting my beer from you 2night. and barnes? none of that cheap crap you pass off on wilson. imported. dark. expensive. you _kapish_? **

_Yeah, yeah. I capisce._

His txt window remained blessedly blank after that so Jim tossed it back into his desk and pulled out the teacher’s edition of the math text book the kids were using this year. It was so weird, for the life of him he could not even remember taking algebra, let alone in fifth grade, but the times were clearly changing. No wonder the kids were acting like cynical mini agenda driven adults.


	3. Chapter 3

As the last of the stragglers exited his classroom on their way to the temporary freedom of lunch Jim collapsed back against his relic of a desk chair, ignoring its shriek of protest, and contemplated the backs of his eyelids. Seriously, how the hell did he end up a teacher?

Talk about a hell of your own making. He remembered back when he’d been a kid, helping to raise his little sisters and all the work that went into being the oldest kid of a single working mother, and if you’d told him back then that he’d end up spending his life surrounded by kids he was not obligated to endure because of blood he’d have laughed in your face. Nope, Jim had been more than content to spend his days working on cars and his nights on the town. Then he got older and came down with a fuckin' terminal case of patriotism, willing to bleed and die for red, white, and blue idealism, except he didn't die. No, instead his transport got taken out by an IED and he and the shrapnel that had torn the shit outta his left side had gotten taken hostage. By the time Uncle Sam had finally shown up to rescue him the entire mess had gone septic and Jim was down a career, an arm and the stupid idealism that had gotten him there in the first place.

Now he was in the back ass of Maine teaching fifth grade and while he could remember the entire sequence of events that led to him getting here, for the absolute life of him he could not remember how the hell he got _here_. It was like an itch in the back of his head and if he could just remem-

“Yo, asshat, we doing this thing or are you going to lay there like sleeping beauty all day? And dude, before you even ask, I am not going to kiss you. No matter how hard you beg.”

Jim cracked an irritated eyelid and gave his best malevolent side eye to the walking cautionary tale about poor life choices lounging in the door way to his classroom. “Keep your pants on Francis.”

“Dude! Not. Cool.” The man who had the misfortune to have had said moniker hung on him hissed at Jim and peered down either side of the door, making sure the hallways were clear of any tiny pitchers with big ears. “I have a reputation to maintain here.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Those third graders are a tough bunch, you don’t put up a good front and one day you’re gonna end up rubbed out under the monkey bars at recess.” Rolling his eyes Jim straightened and hauled himself outta his chair, which gave a pathetic squeak of relief at no longer being burdened by his ass.

“Yeah, laugh it up there Mr. Barnes. You have that desk and the ability to fail their little asses standing between you and them if they turn on you, all I have is my rep as the cool janitor to keep me off of the killing fields.” He looked dead serious and Jim had to give him that, it couldn't have been easy being the closest thing Storybrooke had to a shiftless ne'er-do-wel.

“Fine. What are the kids calling you these days?”

“Well, I tried to get them down with calling me Batman, but after the unfortunate misunderstanding in September I realized that it was not going to happen.”

“The unfortunate misunderstanding in September? You mean the time when you got your dumb ass stuck in the ac ducts overnight the day before classes started looking for the stash you thought you’d left there but that you’d actually smoked two week before and ya scared the hell outta poor Miss Drew then next day by begging her to call 911 because she had the misfortune to be the first to hit the powder room that morning and that happened to be where your fat head was stuck in the ceiling? And then the entire school got shut down because the fire department couldn't get ya outta there without bringing in every single truck they had and Miss Drew called Dar and she showed up to live tweet the whole damn thing? You mean that unfortunate misunderstanding?” Jim raised both eyebrows at “Batman” and watched as the blush climbed down his face to clash with the unfortunate purple tank top he’d decided to pair with the standard issue army green coveralls that unfortunately came with his job.

“God you are dick, no wonder you’re still single.”

“Maybe so, but I’m a dateless dick who is paying you in beer and bail so you might wanna shut your trap lest I get my delicate feelings hurt and am too traumatized to pick up next time you call, crying in the clink, because the love of your life arrested you for public indecency. Again.”

The exaggerated sigh and eye roll that Jim gets in response to that is a thing of beauty. That said, throw in a foot stomp and it’s also something Jim is pretty sure he’s seen several of his fifth graders pull off significantly better than the grown ass adult in front of him. “Fine, whatever. We doing this thing now or are there anymore humiliating episodes from my past you need to reminisce about in detail? Oh, how about the time I lost my virginity in the back of my girlfriend’s brothers van when her parents were planning on borrowing it to deliver their contribution to the church rummage sale? At the same time.”

“Really?” Jim asked in genuine interest. This was a story he had yet to hear, and he was pretty sure he’d heard all of ‘um.

“The only reason I am still alive is down the fact that her dad had what he thought was a heart attack when he opened up the back doors to load up thier crap. He was fine, but I however got thrown out of the back of the van when they hauled ass to get him to the hospital, that he did not need cause he was _fine_ , and had to walk home across town. Without my pants. In November. In _Maine_.”

“I… wow… Pal that’s rough and that’s come’n from a guy missing a arm.”

“Yeah. Dude. My life has just… Not great is what I'm saying.”

Jim tried to plot out any miss steps in his life that could have ended up with him standing in a ugly purple tank top, recounting probably the single saddest sex story ever, on a day when not having to clean up vomit was as good as it got. Damn… “Come on Barton, show me where my kid’s making bad choices and tonight when you pick up the beer I’ll throw in pizza and a Game of Thrones marathon gratis.”

Francis Barton may have been the town joke, or at least the one that does not go by the name Tony Stark, but he was also not a moron, despite his unending efforts to convince everyone to the contrary, so he took the peace offering as a win and jerked his head in the direction he’d tailed Miss Katie Bishop on her mysterious errand.

“This way Barnes. Looks like your kid is pulling a Buffy.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“How did you make it through the 90’s dude? Were you in a coma the entire time?”

“Clearly. Now, you gonna tell me what that there reference was referencing or do I gotta beat it outta ya?”

“No need to get violent, she went to the library and is… actually no, you need to see this for yourself.”

Jim stared at Francis, trying his best to will the asshole into divulging his intel, but clearly whatever Francis had spent the nineteen nineties doing besides smoking reefer while be boning up on obscure pop cultural references. it must have included counter intelligence training or something because he just smirked at Jim and wiggled his eyebrows in a way that made Jim want to rip them off.

“So, the library, huh?”

 

Jim and Francis lingered outside the double doors to the school library, painted the same request industrial green as every other door in Storybrooke K-12, and tried to look like they weren't loitering. The doors were as battered and old as everything else in this mausoleum of public schools systems past and lacked any sort of windows for recon on what may lay behind them. Jim had always found the library strangely disturbing, in a way he could never really put into words, sorta like a lot of the things that bothered him. Some days he felt like if only he could articulate the weird constant low grade dread and misery that was his baseline normal, he might be able to ditch the weekly therapy appointments and maybe start having something even remotely resembling a normal life. Then he’d catch sight of a set of a particular brand of colored pencils sticking outta one of his kid’s backpacks, or the wrong Tommy Dorsey song would play on the radio, or it would suddenly get so damn cold wherever he was standing he could swear frost was forming on his skin, and he’d be two seconds away from a panic attack and he’d have no idea why.

Jim knew PTSD messed you up, nightmares, hyper awareness, emotional instability, but sometimes in the late nights, he that pushed even later to avoid having to face his empty bed, a small voice deep inside his head whispered that maybe this was not just the normal one armed vet PTSD drama that made up his life, maybe this was something worse.

A throat cleared nosily beside him and when Jim glanced over to see if Francis was actually choking on his own tongue, 'cause the horrific noises comin’ from him implied that he was, all he got for his trouble was a pair of wiggling eyebrows. That for the record he still wanted to rip off.

“So are you actually going to do this or are you too scared to ruin your chances at teacher of the year by having to give one of your best students detention?”

“Shuddup ya lunkhead, I’m thinkin’.”… “and for the record there’s no way in hell am I ever getting teacher of the year, Furry in Pre-K has had that locked up since I moved here.”

Francis just grinned at him, not even remotely deflected by Jim’s pathetic attempt at a dodge. “Right…Thinking. Is that what they called it at NYU? Because from where I sit over in GED town it looks a lot like stalling.”

Jim revisited the familiar urge to reach out and throttle the wise guy standing to his left and reminded himself that it was a bad idea, mostly because while his instincts may be telling him it was a sure thing, the reality of his piece of crap prosthetic had something else to say altogether.

“I’m not stallin’, I just gotta get a handle on whatever is in works before I go stomping in there like the gestapo.”

“Well, if it helps I think it’s an affair de armor, I saw that Bradley kid duck in there about five minutes after your wayward duckling. Young love, it’s a powerful thing.”

“Okay, first? Affair de armor? If it’s anything it's  _L' amour de jeunesse_, and whoever told you that you could speak French lied to ya Buddy. And second there is no way Elijah “Look at me and my perfect attendance record and flawless GPA” Bradley would endanger his running for class valedictorian for some kissy face with some skirt in the book room. That kid has been planning his assault on Harvard since preschool.”

“Skirt? Kissy face? Dude, I know Stark rides you for this shit, like, constantly- but seriously, have you ever considered not talking like you're channeling Humphrey Bogart in black and white?”

“Whadda ya want, it’s the way we talk in Brooklyn.”

“Dude, I have been to Brooklyn and trust me the dialect you drop is so far from how people there talk you might as well be speaking French. Which you apparently do, thereby proving my point.”

“Wait, you've been to Brooklyn?”

“Yeah? I think?” 

“When? I thought you’d never left this town? At least that's what seems to be a recurring theme during your drunken ranting.”

“Huh,” Francis looked off in the middle distance, staring at the wall without seeming to be actually seeing at anything, “I could have sworn….” He gave a sudden full body twitch and seemed to shake off his glitch. “Whatever man, I may have never been to Brooklyn, but I watch a lot of TV, I mean _a lot_ , and I happen to kno-“

“Look, we can stand here and chew the fat all day, but I gotta fifth grade Machiavelli I have to catch in the middle blatant insubordination so if you don’t have any more skinny to add to this I have work to do.” Jim ignored any further input from Barton and slammed though the library doors before his own unease and Francis’s inability to shut the hell up delayed him any longer.

In a school that was defiantly old school in the face of the twenty first century, the library clearly looked to that as a challenge and decided to run with it. If the rest of the school was relic of the nineteen fifties, the library seemed to aim for the thirties and beyond. Hell, Jim was pretty sure some of the books on the shelves were copy righted to Gutenberg. Battered brown wooden tables with matching chairs that predated the idea of comfort were scattered in front of the mass of shelves that took up the bulk of the room and there was not a computer in sight, just an old card catalog taking up the far right wall, mercilessly reminding all who entered that research was supposed to be hard work. Sitting at the desk facing the door was the gate keeper of knowledge, her shoulder length black hair was ruler straight and the eyes behind her half-moon glasses looked upon Jim and his interruption with aggravated disinterest. How she managed that look every single time she saw him was a mystery Jim had as yet to solve.

“Miss May-“

“Ms.”

“ahem… right, sorry, um.. Ms. May, I was-“

“You have a runner. Bishop, Catherine. She was joined roughly twenty minutes ago by a second one from Wilson’s class. Bradley, Elijah. Class president. They are currently in the stacks, back left corner, in the ‘relaxed reading nook’. They have pulled several reference books from the special collection shelves that cannot leave this room as they are one of a kind and out of print items. Find out what they are doing, make sure my books are returned to their shelves in the same condition in which they left them, and get your unauthorized students out of my library before I have to. Understood?”

Jim stood gob smacked for a good ten seconds before his sense of self-preservation kicked in. “Yes ma’am, I will go collect them and return them to their classrooms.”

Ms. May’s eyes narrowed in judgment as she stared him down before giving him the briefest of nods. Jim collected himself and made a break for the stacks before she could change her mind and throw him bodily out of a window before dealing with the runner’s herself. Which Jim did not for one instant doubt that she could. Despite his very reasonable fear, Jim still had to find some small part of his relationship with Ms. May amusing, here he was ex Special Forces and he was shaking in his boots over some dame in a sweater set and librarian glasses. So maybe his fear of the library is not so much of a mystery after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So not beta'd. So very, very, not beta'd. Sorry about that.

The “Relaxed Reading Nook” was not particularly relaxed nor did much reading go on back in it's depths and it was actually not really a nook, at least not as far as Jim understood the word nook to mean. It had started out it's life as a separate room from the library, purpose currently unknown, but that had been before someone back in the day had decided to knocked down the dividing wall between it and the rest of the library, thereby creating a small and intimate space that sprung off the side of the library like an architectural tumor. Whatever it had started its life as, it was now the place where students liked to go skive off homework and eat their body weight in Flaming Hot Cheetos while making dumb goo goo eyes at whatever dubious example of the opposite or the same gender may be in their eye line at any given moment. The teachers at Storybooke k-12 collectively prayed for the day the entire damn room would get sucked into another dimension or implode under the weight of decades of cumulative adolescent stupidity. So far though, no dice. Instead it was the place most likely to contain the kids in the upper grades doing things that would make Jesus weep.

The multi-leveled room was divided between a loft space filled with a couple of comfortable reading chairs and a truly disreputable couch literally covered in dubious stains and a lower area filled a small collection of specimens from Storybrooke k-12's signature battered wooden tables and matching uncomfortable chairs. Seriously, save for the two chairs in the nook loft and the desk chair with actual lumbar support Mr. Furry in Pre K somehow got his hands on, through what Jim assumes can only have been dark and dubious means, there was not a single piece of furniture in the place that could not do double duty in any interrogation room anywhere. Seriously, what was it with the chairs in this place?

The shelves of the stacks flowed like a tide of knowledge that broke on the shores of willful teen-aged stupidity represented by the nook, so that it felt like a private and enclosed space when in reality it was still part of the much larger room. The entire setup gave the illusion of privacy without any actual privacy being involved. Which meant Jim could hear the set of pre-pubescent voices caught up in a terse argument before he’s even got two thirds the way though the dewy decimal system. By the time Jim hit the 600's and "Microwaves: The Science of the Future" the voices had become clear enough that he could follow the gist of the dispute, too bad that even with that in his favor Jim still had no idea what the hell was going on.

“You do realize that this entire plan of yours is completely insane? As in it is based on a premise that is so far beyond rationality that if anyone ever found out you were even thinking it you’d be committed and dosed with the strongest anti psychotics currently available on the market?”

That was Elijah, who was pretty much always the voice of sanity in any of the groups he associated with. This was not surprising for a kid elected class president three years running, who was also the star of the debate team, editor of the school newspaper, was in both the Chess and the Skeptics Society, ran track, wrestled, and still managed to find time to volunteer at the Storybrooke Hospital on weekends; reading to coma patients and the other sick and infirm stuck in antiseptic hell trying heal up from what ailed ‘um. Seriously, the kid was redefining the word overachiever, which when they updated it in Webster’s is gonna look great on his Harvard application. And knowing Elijah? That was probably his plan all along.

Kate’s voice when she responded was clipped and Jim did not even to see her to know that her shoulders were set in that rigged line that they got when she was forcibly restraining herself from physical reprisals. “It is not insane, it’s this town that's insane!”

“Katie-“

“No, look. It’s right here!” There was the sound of something impacting on something else, a hand slapping down on a book if Jim had to make a guess. “Everything, everyone, is here! I don’t know how, but they are and it is too creepy accurate to be a coincidence!”

A long suffering sigh drifted through the air just a Jim reached the last set of shelves before his targets. Slowing his pace Jim walked softly as he could, creeping up on his and Sam’s runners, sticking close to the shelves as he somehow managed the impossible task of sneaking up on a couple of hyper alert tweens who spent their lives in a Starbucks and Monster energy drink fueled blur. Jim did not know where the instinct to remain hidden from his targets came from but it was poking him hard, like a bony finger in the soft spot of his mind, so he listened to it. Something was up, Jim hadn't been sure what to expect when he’d finally tracked Katie down, but from the sounds of it someone was messing with one of his kids heads and he’d need as much intel as could get before he could hunt the asshole down and make sure he never thought of even being in the same time zone as one of Jim’s kids ever again.

“Eli-“

“It’s Elijah, and I would think that you would know that by now considering we have been friends since kindergarten.”

“No, it’s not and we haven't. Your name is Eli and we did not grow up together. I know it sounds crazy, but if you would only read the book it would all make sense!”

“Kaite….” Elijah was starting to sound less annoyed and more concerned. “Don’t say that. That’s-“

Jim was so focused on the conversation as he crouched down and angled himself so he could get a look around the corner of the last shelf, over-sized books 700-900, that he forgot for one brief moment that while he might be ex special forces? His arm was pretty much the prosthetic that time forget. The damn thing waited until Jim was just about to get a clear field of view when, seemingly with a mind of its own, got caught on a metal bookend and somehow dragged the entirety of biography, Q, R, and S, down around Jim’s feet. The sounds of the resultant book avalanche having the effect of cutting though whatever Elijah was about to say and cluing in the kids that they had an audience. The silence from the "Relaxed Reading Nook" was sudden, almost preternatural so, and anything but relaxed; no more argumentative tween voices, no sounds of movement, and Jim was pretty sure they weren't even breathing.

Jim rolled his eyes and glared at the artificial piece of crap that was the bane of his existence. Seriously, it was moments like this that made him seriously consider taking up Stark on his offer. Which even at his most desperate and despairing Jim knew could only ever end in tears and explosions. So. Many. Explosions. But honestly that was a problem for another day, right now Jim had more pressing concerns. Like the two eleven year-olds who were going to turn blue and pass out if they did not take a breath in the next minute. The way Jim say it he had two choices. One, he could skulk back out of the library, maintaining his dubious illusion of dignity and leave Katie to soak in whatever was driving her round the bend. Or two, he could own the moment, walk into the den of dumb, find out what the hell was going on, and fix it.

Jim did not even need the strangely familiar sharp poke of a surprising strong bony finger in the soft parts of conscious to know what way he was going to jump. Straightening up Jim glanced down to make sure his khakis and brown plaid shirt were in order and his fly was not at half-mast before loudly clearing his throat and bearding the tiny lions in their den. Stepping around the last of the shelves and mess of books he was most definitely going to pick up before Ms. May found it, he slapped on the best concerned authority figure face he had and got a good look at the shenanigans behind all this mess.

Katie and Elijah were sitting at the furthest back table huddled around a stack of books that while Jim could not see their titles, their spines screamed Ms. May’s “Special” Special Collections collection. Books that even the teachers only glanced at longingly, without ever dreaming of even photocopying them, let alone taking them out of the library. Ms. May kept them safely behind locked glass cabinets and only let them out when the glacier of her soul was suitably melted in the most minuscule manner by the application of baked goods and the best French roast money could buy. Students were not even allowed near them, and yet there they were out on the broken down tables, dangerously near toxic levels of accumulated Flaming Hot Cheetos dust and crusted Mountain Dew residue. No wonder they looked like they were about to shit peach pits. How the hell they got their hands on those books a mystery of the ages.

Jim looked from the books to the tweens who both looked like their worst fears in the entire universe had suddenly manifested in front of them and they skipped the day that Professor Lupin covered the patronus spell in their Defense Against Dark Arts class. If Jim did not know better it looked like Elijah was attempting to develop spontaneous teleportation through the application of will and visions of Harvard rejection letter alone and Katie? Well Katie’s expressions cycled through terror, to resignation, before landing on defiant resignation and setting up housekeeping there. Jim let them marinate in their individual hells for a minute or two before taking pity on um and breaking the tension with the application of some patented Barnes charm.

“Katie. Elijah. You kids wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?” Okay, maybe charm was not the word for it.

Elijah’s eyes grew to the size of dish plates and he took a deep breath, clearly about to launch into a reasonable explanation of everything when Katie’s expression cleared of any doubt and was suddenly filled with a level of resolve that was simply terrifying on an eleven year-old. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the book that was open in front to her.

“Mr. Barnes, you need to believe me. You, me, this entire town, we are all under a curse and I think only you can break it.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

“So what’cha got there Barnes? Looks like some advanced reading, whole paragraphs and everything, you finally graduate to picture books with actual words in them?”

Jim glared up at Tony from his usual seat in his regular both and reminded himself that without the Pott he’d pretty much starve and that no matter how horrible his service, nor grating his personality, there was no way Ginny would ever fire Tony, so punching his face in was an all-around bad idea. Also, as he had as yet to top off Jim’s cup of liquid life, telling him to fuck off before doing so was also a bad call. His only choice was a straight answer but as he opened his mouth to explain why he was reading what amounted to a picture book with such bewildered and intense focus Jim realized there was no way on god’s green earth he could logically explain it.So instead he snapped his mouth shut, looked back down at the battered copy of Marvels: Tales of Adventure, and tried on a casual shrug.

“Some of my kids wanna do a project on it, told ‘um I’d have to read it first to approve the material. Ya, know… Like it’s my job ta do? Because I’m a fucking teacher?” The _asshole_ tacked on at the end of the sentence went unspoken but was well heard.

“Whatever.” Tony shrugged, clearly bored with the subject if Jim was not going to play verbal dodge-ball with him. “You going to order anything this year or are you just here to glare at books and take up valuable booth real estate.”

Jim glanced around the dining room, noting the single group of old timers huddled around a table in the far corner and the back of the one brave diner sitting at the counter. “Yeah, because clearly it’s standing room only in here tonight.”

Tony made a harumph face but did not add any further color commentary before topping off Jim’s cup and wandering back to his usual post behind the counter, so he counted that as win. Not that he could say much, word had clearly gotten out that Lenny was on the grill today and the people of Storybrooke had collectively decided to make alternate plans for dinner that night. Jim picked up his mug and drank deeply, willing the caffeine content to negate the stress headache that had been crawling around the back of his head since he’d agreed to this entire farce. Not that he’s had much of a choice in the matter when he’d cornered Katie and Elijah in the Library that morning.

_“Mr. Barnes, you have to believe me.”_

_Katie’d looked so intense as she stared him down over the open book between them, but behind that Jim could see something else lurking. Terror. Katie was terrified, and desperate for some good old fashioned adult intervention. She needed him on her side, Jim could read that clear as day._

_“Kaite maybe-“ Elijah tried to interject but Katie spun on him so fast it made Jim’s head spin._

_“No Eli! This is important! I know you don’t believe me, but this is real, it is happening right here, right now, and we need his help,” Katie looked ready to punch one of her best friends in the world right in the face if he tried to “voice of reason” her one more time and Elijah looked worried and scared himself. Though for him it was worry and fear for his friends apparent psychotic break and being totally out of his depth in how to help._

_Luckily Jim had dealt with all manner of breaks from reality while in the service and his depth was a whole hell of a lot deeper._

_“Elijah, “ Jim used the gentlest voice of authority in his arsenal, “I knocked some books down over by those shelves. Why don’t you go pick them up for me and then head back to class. I’m sure Mr. Wilson is wondering where you disappeared to. Just tell him I grabbed you for some help carrying something and you should be good. Okay? I’ll stay here with Katie and we’ll talk this out, “ Jim gestured to the book that seemed to the crux of the situation and their surroundings, hoping Elijah would fill in the gaps for himself as Jim was not quite sure exactly what “this” was all about._

_There was one moment where the boy seemed torn between staying to have his friend’s back and making a break for blessed safety of the classroom and Sam’s post lunch survey of American History, but Jim hadn't cultivated the rep of being the teacher kids could trust for nothing. After a brief war inside his head Elijah nodded before shooting an apologetic look at Katie, and headed over to Jim’s book disaster with a quiet “Yes sir.”_

_Jim waited and watched as Elijah picked up the books with a brisk efficiency that put him slightly in awe. Just what was Sam teaching those AP kids of his? Jim would bet anything that not only were the books going back on to the correct shelves right side up, the damn things were probably in alphabetical order too. Once Elijah was done, and it was clear that Jim would not start talking until he had moved along, the future leader of the free world reluctantly left them behind and hopefully headed back to Sam’s downy bosom to be clucked back into line with all of Wilson’s other honor roll chicks._

_Katie had sat through all of this in surprising silence, for a kid who always seemed to have an answer for everything this was worrisome. Jim watched as she fidgeted and refused to make eye contact, her teeth digging into her bottom lip hard enough to leave a dent, as the minutes ticked on by. Once his ears picked up the sound of the library doors swinging shut Jim cleared his throat and looked down at the cause of all of this trouble. Flipping the book shut he looked at the title in hopes of gleaning some small clue as to why this book in particular was driving one of his kids’ nuts. Marvels: Tales of Adventure, no author listed. The book had the look of something that had been around the block a few times, the cover worn down by countless hands, its pages slightly yellowed with age. The book was lacking a dust jacket and the only illustration on the cover was an embossed symbol, a highly stylized A in a circle, that looked vaguely familiar to Jim but he could not put a finger on to where he’d seen it before._

_“So, this book?” Jim prompted._

_Katie crossed her arms and looked to the side, “yeah, that book.”_

_“And you say I’m in it?” For the first time since Jim had known her uncertainty gathered around Katie Bishop like a dark cloud, obscuring the certainty that was her birthright._

_“Well….. sort of?”_

The pages underneath Jim’s fingertips were partially made up of text and part illustrations. Not quite a comic, more like a picture book written for old kids or adults. The book itself seemed to be made of up a bunch of short stories, weird hybrid adaptions of super hero comic books, classic fairy tales and some that seemed to be created entirely out of new cloth. Warriors and assassins, magicians and gods, all of them separately fighting off the evil plots of a multi headed dragon from Greek mythology and its many evil Nazi mad scientist minions.

Seriously, Nazi mad scientists, working for dragon’s, fighting a group call the Avenging Knights of the Shield.He could not even make this shit up.

It was stupid, there was nothing in this book that had anything to do with his life, as it was here now in Storybrooke, nor in any of the years that had battered him about before he washed up on the town’s shores. But still…. There was something odd about it, a sense of rightness that overtook Jim when he’d started reading the words on the page. He’d promised Katie he would, read the damn book that is. It was the only way he could see to slap a tourniquet on the situation. Katie was not going to let this go, Jim knew that for a fact, and while he normally would bring something like this to the attention of her parents, there was something about the Bishops that made him hold off. It’s not that they were bad people… well except for the fact that they were totally bad people. Jim was pretty sure Katie’s dad was connected and honestly, what was a juiced mobster was doing way out in the back ass of Maine even? The damn situation made not one lick of sense, but that was a crusade for another day.

So yeah, there was no way Jim was going to trust that guy to do right by his kid, he was going to have to do it for him and right now that meant playing along until he had some sort of handle on the situation. Jim let his fingers do the walking as he skimmed though the various stories; Rage of the Hulk, Littlest Dancer and the Blood Red Room, The Man with the Iron Heart, How the Falcon Found His Wings… There were some seriously weird tales in that book, but there was one chapter he kept coming back to, The Star and the Shield.

Jim could see how Katie’s head had gotten twisted by it, because seriously if Jim didn’t know better he’d have sworn he was looking at himself all done up in water colors on the page. Sure the hair was different, like Jim would ever have it that long, what was he? A god damn hobo? His ma would kill him. But the other details? They were there in spades. And the character’s background, a one armed broken warrior on the run from his past? That hit a little too close to home. Even just reading the character’s name, The Winter Solider, was enough to make Jim’s skin prickle with goose bumps.

Leaning back Jim tore his eyes away from the illustration of the Winter Solider fighting shadows and monsters while trying to get to an artic cave where his heart slept in a coffin of ice and focused on the ceiling, trying to steady his breath. His good hand shook as he tried to steady himself, pressing his palm flat on the formic table top, resisting his fingers urge to curl inward, this was not the sort of situation fists could get him out of. Closing his eyes Jim focused on his safe place, the one carefully crafted in the endless hours of therapy he’d endured while he’d slowly fought his way through recovery in the shitty VA hospital he’d gotten dumped in once he’d finally landed back in the states. Quite room, sounds of Brooklyn coming through an open window. Jim let the details of the room fill themselves in, slipping into place almost like memory.

_The only light was coming through a widow hung with lace curtains, Irish lace passed down after she’d passed on. Two twin beds, currently across from another, but ready to be pushed together soon enough once the weather starts to turn. Braided rope rug on the floor, his sister Becca’s work, Jim is sprawled across it while his head rests on a skinny thigh. His eyes are closed, but that don’t matter because he didn't need eyes to feel the fine boned hand working its way through his hair or to hear the deep voice humming absently above him, or smell the clean scent of the man with him mixing with his own, blending them together into one--_

 

> “You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti?
> 
> You want a Maserati? You better work bitch
> 
> You want a Lamborghini? Sippin' martinis?
> 
> Look hot in a bikini? You better work bitch”

What the hell?!!

Jim was yanked outta his head by the obnoxious pop music blaring out of his phone. Across the room Tony was shooting him some seriously judging eyebrows and even the old timers across the way were starting to turn around to see who was making such the racket. Jim snaked out his hand and accepted the call before Brittney could get to the chorus,

“Barton. Seriously, how the fuck did you manage to get a hold of my phone long enough to change my ring tone?”

“Dude, I keep telling you I’mma ninja.”

“I thought you said you were Batman?”

“Dude. Batman _is_ a ninja, get with the program. Anyways, that is besides the point. The actual point is where the hell are you?"

“Um. What?”

“I'm at your place, freezing my nads off, while you and my promised beer and pizza are not.”

“Oh, hell. Jeeze, I’m sorry ‘bout that pal. I’m at the Pott and lost track of time. Wanna meet me here and I’ll buy you a burger and beer?”

“Are you kidding? Not with Lenny Fitz, the Boy Born With the Ability to Taste, on grill tonight. You head back here as agreed upon, with my pizza and beer, and I’ll just wait inside your place.”

“Fine, but you don’t have a key to get in.”

“Heh, that’s cute. Your Netflix password is still the same, right? Awesome I will see you in twenty.”

Jim stared blankly at his phone for a good minute before starting to pack up and wave Tony over for his check. His fingers lingered on the cover of Marvels a brief second before he popped it into his bag, that was a mystery for another night. Tonight he had a janitor with delusions of being the next Jason Borne to mollify and, after he’d gotten enough beer into him, listen to the one billionth reiteration of the saga of Barton V Rushman: No Ordinary Love.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a quote by the amazing Mae West.
> 
> This is what happens when when you are on Tumble while simultaneously doing a Once Upon a Time binge marathon over Labor Day weekend. In other words nothing good.


End file.
